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I take issue with the people who insist that converting and kitbashing is dead/dying.

The only thing that is true these days is that you (mostly) DON'T HAVE TO. But if you want to, you can!

Converted Primaris Heroes:


Ironically, most of my conversions these days are to save money rather than buy $45 CAD character models.

phillv85 wrote:
They did: Space Marine Heroes.

Wait until they're unique special units altogether that are grossly undercosted and overpowered, and require a very special datasheet to use them.

I'm joking around, obviously- but I've got no doubts GW's gone down the list of 'scummy stuff video game companies do' and tried to find one that would work for wargaming.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 slave.entity wrote:
If you were a fan of video games in the early 90s and watched it evolve from being this niche, nerdy pastime to the watered-down, mainstream, skinner box-fest we have now, then everything GW has been up to lately should look very familiar.

Once you start talking about video games and comparing them to 40k, I start wondering how many times someone at GW has examined the possibility of 'blind bags' with 'super special characters' limited to 1 per 1000 boxes of Primaris Lieutenants.

They already kind of do that with the space marine heroes packs.

edit: As soon as I posted this I noticed someone else mention it.

It's a mixed bag though, isn't it? In some ways, GW is doing way better than at any time in the last ten years or so. The quality of the plastic miniatures is really high and they seem to have toned down some of the worst excesses of the aesthetic problems of recent times. There are still some ugly misses (Fyreslayers for example) but on the whole the quality is really high.

They have also made the game accessible at a basic level, with the indexes and free online rules/rules in the box. This lets kids getting started play with their stuff immediately. In the same vein, the "easy to build" stuff is a great idea for getting kids started in the hobby. Kids that start today are tomorrow's playerbase, so I am really happy to see them doing that stuff. Similarly, the Start Collecting boxes help newbies get into the game.

And they are really "games" workshop again, having released a whole bunch of boxed games of various sorts over the past couple of years. Not all of them might be good, but any of them could be a gateway into miniature gaming for someone.

However, along with all this good comes some bad. The way they are handling factions in Age of Sigmar is utter balls. All the different books you have to buy if you want to get serious about the game are ridiculous. I get the same impression with 40K but I haven't paid as much attention to that game.

And then there is the ugly. The drive to make all the names "unique" for some reason, no doubt some sort of overblown paranoia from their god awful legal department has lead to what I consider pure vandalism of the setting with really hamfisted renaming of factions and an absolutely nauseating naming scheme for weapons and units in particular. This, above all else, makes me think the game has either been written by stupid people or has been intentionally dumbed down. And added to that there seems to be a push towards "officialising" everything, with GW kits for scenery and so on on being the only accepted ones, and every battle taking place on a Realm of battle or other GW board. This makes sense, but I feel bad for the kids getting into the hobby right now who probably don't feel like they have "permission" to make their own stuff like I did when I was a kid. Luckily, a lot of them find crafting videos on Youtube and can see what can be done outside of the official ecosystem, but they also have the idea that the "official" stuff is somehow better.

I think GW are back on track actually, compared to the latter Kirby years. I am certainly buying more stuff from them and am excited about using it, and might even give a GW game a try one of these days.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Luciferian wrote:
Oh, I'm sure that many of us share in that exact sense of enjoyment. It's probably why most of us are still around. The game itself has never been perfect or balanced, and even the kits have gone through varying phases of modularity, but the oddball, sandbox universe of 40k, paired with the potential to create your own stories within it, are the heart and soul of the whole enterprise.

I can't agree with you more, if I had three thumbs I'd up them all for you and probably let you come to my house and poop with the door open.

Overall, I had a sort of 'being born again' experience with 40k. I got away from playing competitive and trying to make a good list and win at tournaments. I got away from competitive players that didn't know how to switch that mode off (I know a lot of great competitive players that are always glad to sit down and help people get more out of their army and improve their skills, and are still fully capable of playing casual and fun games). I got away from the players that say they aren't competitive, but secretly are super-competitive but can't win against someone who is also competitive. I got away from anyone who gloats about their wins to everyone. I got away from all of that crap, and said, "I wanna have fun with the things I like".

I saw 40k again the same way I'd seen it when I was a young kid- a big, crazy, wild hyper-violent and over-the-top setting where you play with toys and have rules for how the toys kill each other. I started seeing the rules as a toolkit, just a very basic structure of how to play the game- little numbers and words on a piece of paper to give you some guidelines, but something that a few guys could just use the basics of to do whatever they wanted and tack on whatever else they wanted for the sake of having fun with toys. I actually researched the way old Rogue Trader games were played and what made people love it so much.

I sought out like-minded people, who wanted the same thing and were having the same frustrations with the local meta and FLGS. You might hear people say it's wrong to be a gatekeeper, but that's exactly what I did- I screened people and analyzed them while I spent time with them like they were gonna be babysitting my kids and holding my bank account info. I made a literal list of candidates and I scratched a lot of people off this list over time. While the end result may have been about a dozen players, the "Dauntless Few" that I had were rock-solid, good people that just wanted to have fun and enjoy their stuff and honestly didn't give a damn about strict rules or limitations or even following specifics as long as the end result was having a lot of fun with little war figures.

Fast-forward a year and we've got more than one table, fully painted terrain, we're playing very narrative games, even sort of homebrewed games, incorporating others, playtesting odd things that aren't even things in regular 40k, and writing entire campaign histories and we might be looking into a Youtube channel or Livestream service, or at least making a site where we can share what we've got with others and have them giving feedback and ideas from everything to story ideas, crafting tips, and suggested rules to try. It's honestly the most fun I've had with any game ever, all because I stopped 'doing it the right way' and focused on having fun and put the "Rule of Cool" first and foremost.

Hands down, bolters to buttholes, I can't get that out of 'better' games. Because right now, the fun I'm having with 40k compared to other tabletop games is like comparing PC Gaming to checkers.

Wholeheartedly seconded. Once you go past the "competitive arms race" driven community, nothing really compares with the sheer vastness of 40K. By that I don't mean, that competitive mindset is wrong in itself, only that when "tight, tournament experience" isn't your priority, there are no other games that can provide such complex and practically endless experience.

As to OP question, this all has to do with games industry and games community evolution as a whole - I started in '95 (I was 15 back then) with very open, narrative driven group and 40K was a side game to RPG games for me. To say that those were "pre internet" times is understatement - nobody even had an email back then. There was literally no way to not only netlist, but to even know all available 40K material to crunch it before tournament, at least here in Poland. So games and communities revolved more around lore, hobby aspects and cinematic feeling of 2nd ed. Heck, I even funded large parts of my army back then by sculpting non existing or custom models for other players - there was no policing of other players, everyone I played with was focused on exploring the universe and possibilities. But then Diablo became a phenomenon (PC games were no longer lacking immersive visual and sandbox experience), 3rd ed happened and then we saw rise in online multiplayer games like Quake, and in a very short time all that was left was competitive oriented folks and the paradigm of gaming shifted completely. In result I had a 15 year long break from the hobby, because I had no one to relive/continue the early lore driven experience of 40K and came back only, when I have stumbled upon few curious and willing board gamers, that weren't focused on competition, but on collaboration.

Regarding GW missing things - they actually tried to reinvigorate the community into "old ways" - if you look at WD introduction of 6th it is all about narrative and cinematics. But at that time gaming mentality was already firmly into competitiveness and in result nobody cared about "forging the narrative" and all 6th and 7th ed got was hate for not being tournament ruleset (and it was a well deserved hate if your focus is on tight ruleset, it still puzzles me greatly that people actually tried to compete at 6th or 7th). That GW failed at delivering a good and bulletproof narrative experience in 6th or 7th didn't help either, but they did try to monetize those sentiments. Unfortunately, detailed, immersive narrative experience and tight tournament ready rulesets are very opposing game design goals, so while "tree ways to play" are generally a good idea, they are a kind of "rotten compromise", because in order to not have to write two completely different games, the underlying core mechanics has to be simple and when you build on that, both mindsets get a somehow lacking end result.

nou wrote:

As to OP question, this all has to do with games industry and games community evolution as a whole - I started in '95 (I was 15 back then) with very open, narrative driven group and 40K was a side game to RPG games for me. To say that those were "pre internet" times is understatement - nobody even had an email back then. There was literally no way to not only netlist, but to even know all available 40K material to crunch it before tournament, at least here in Poland. So games and communities revolved more around lore, hobby aspects and cinematic feeling of 2nd ed. Heck, I even funded large parts of my army back then by sculpting non existing or custom models for other players - there was no policing of other players, everyone I played with was focused on exploring the universe and possibilities. But then Diablo became a phenomenon (PC games were no longer lacking immersive visual and sandbox experience), 3rd ed happened and then we saw rise in online multiplayer games like Quake, and in a very short time all that was left was competitive oriented folks and the paradigm of gaming shifted completely. In result I had a 15 year long break from the hobby, because I had no one to relive/continue the early lore driven experience of 40K and came back only, when I have stumbled upon few curious and willing board gamers, that weren't focused on competition, but on collaboration.

I don't know if the computer games coming out of that time had anything to do with it. I wasn't a miniatures wargamer back in the 90's. Heck, I am not even sure I knew that 40k was thing then, though; I probably knew at least a little bit about Warhammer Fantasy as some game shops had tables setup for it. What I was doing was a lot of D&D 2nd edition. In retrospect, the edition was absolutely horrible for power gaming, but I initially found myself in a power gaming group. The worst I had ever experienced. We did that 30-100 level campaign where you confront Orkus and one of the players had a level 90 or so psionic with like ten pages of character sheet. And that player didn't pre-gen that character either. It wasn't an easy campaign either. Only three characters survived the Orkus confrontation and of those, even my level 35 thief died after saving all breath attacks and absorbing the fire portion of Tiamat's many heads. The half damage of 4 of her heads was far more than max hit points of any thief level 50 and below. My point is, that kind of mentality did exist even back in the 90s. What I can't say is maybe things in Warhammer were more narrative since it was still the relative early days compared to D&D which had a couple of decades at that point.

As for the OP, I haven't been involved with GW games for all that long (a couple years). I was first introduced via the Rouge Trader rpgs where I watched a few batreps to get an idea of the universe. Overall, I wasn't impressed as 40k didn't seem like a very good rpg universe to me then. It was too constricted by massive amounts of lore as unyielding to many players as any xenopobic Black Templar. I actually find things like Shadow War and Blackstone Fortress to be extremely funny as the include motley crews that the players of that short-lived FFG Rogue Trader RPG campaign said could never happen in 40k.

That was way longer than I wanted it to be. Shouldn't have had so much coffee.

I don't think GW is fundamentally missing things given my perception of their ideals. I have always had the sense that the game was designed far more as a social catalysis activity that anything resembling a game worth trying to make into a highly competitive tournament system. To the point I think if the designers thought they could get away with it would have never included points and perhaps not even Power Levels. I often think it is some players that are fundamentally missing things trying to make the game into something is really isn't. To their credit, apparently a competitive tournament game was crafted out of 40k. It is not anything I want to do with as I read anything with 'competitive 40k' as highly restrictive army list 40k which may or may not actually create a competitive game. More power to them I guess as they chase the gray plastic dragon of meta.

Before 8th edition, there was a good number of people clamoring to the clock to move forward and so it did. Again, I can't say I like the movement forward as all but makes playing 'historical' 40k impossible in a pick-up game. All if takes is one Primaris or Ynnari Eldar model to show up and that instantly dates when the game takes place. It was much easier to incorporate older 'new' kits to the setting saying this was close to the first time they saw the battlefield or they just weren't in Imperial records yet, etc.

As for kitbashing, I don't have anything I kitbashed that didn't make the current codex. Just a Dark Vengeance Chosen with double lightning claws that got FAQed out for some strange reason. I personally don't care for kitbashing (I know, I am a horrible CSM player). I do a little here and there, usually crafting different poses that the model could normally have. I don't see much of an issue there as plastic, green stuff and plastic card still work okay with most kits. As for the single pose, I have already seen how fast GW has things go out of production. So if I wait a couple of years, that single pose model does become unique. At least at the local level, where no other players have or field it anymore. Honestly, I don't understand calling single pose models 'toyifcation' that is just how a good number of models are from the dollar store '69 SS Camaro to the boutique 1/8 scale stuff. Coming from more of a board game angle, I know players that would consider simply gluing the head on a single cast model as a bridge too far in terms of building a model.

 John Prins wrote:
I take issue with the people who insist that converting and kitbashing is dead/dying.

The only thing that is true these days is that you (mostly) DON'T HAVE TO. But if you want to, you can!

Converted Primaris Heroes:


Ironically, most of my conversions these days are to save money rather than buy $45 CAD character models.

Kitbashing and converting hasn’t gone anywhere. It just takes a bit of skill now and not just imagination. It’s far easier than it was in the days of metal models and true mono pose static models (1st/2nd edition.). If you can’t trim and fill a few bits of plastic to fit together then you can’t really say you were doing conversions before.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Nice models and chapter colours too.

I'm with OP. The creativity of the rules is (IMO) watered down for 7th, for the sake of balance. But where is the balance? Okay, we sacrificed invisible Wraithknights for Loyal 32s and Castellans. The gulf between bad and good is less extreme. But there's still a significant gulf, and we keep it while also gaming an awful lot of unfortunate sameyness.

And the competitive scene, man... I think that's probably the crux of my issue. I'm not a pure fluffbunny (I like playing with strong armies), but there's a sizeable contingent of 40k players who approach the game like LoL -- find the flavor of the month and run with it, and dump it when it gets nerfed. I think that the popularity explosion of the game in 8th simply brought in too many of those types, at least in my local meta. I'm tired of fighting grey knights (or airbrushed knights that somebody commissioned). I'm tired of fighting 3-color minimum Cadians proxied as Catachans. It's simply lame.

And finally -- to the person on the previous page talking about how the game is more like 2nd or 3rd than it's been in awhile because of things like GSC, Blackstone Fortress, etc. etc. ... none of these complaints about about the models (well, monopose models are an issue but I won't go down that rabbit hole). The modeling creativity from GW is at an all-time high and I don't see that slowing down. That's part of the reason that makes me stomach those obnoxious cost increases. But at this stage, it's not like those wacky new factions are really bringing in wacky, different rules. I'm optimistic about GSC, but we'll see. In 7th, that was an army that fundamentally changed the way the game was played, and did so without being super OP (while still being strong). If they can do something similar in 8th, I'll feel better about the state of the game, but I'm just afraid they don't have the intestinal fortitude (or the rules know-how, or whatever) to make something operate differently.

This is just a ridiculous gripe fest. GW has been knocking out of the park as of late. Not only have their rules been better than in past editions, but they are clearly listening to their play testers. Also their model game is on point, from the new Primaris Marines to the specialty stuff it's tight. With great opportunity for conversion if you like.

dkoz wrote:
This is just a ridiculous gripe fest. GW has been knocking out of the park as of late. Not only have their rules been better than in past editions, but they are clearly listening to their play testers. Also their model game is on point, from the new Primaris Marines to the specialty stuff it's tight. With great opportunity for conversion if you like.

I'll betcha a nickel that the new Genestealer Cult characters will be monopose. Just like 90% of the characters in the last 3 years. That doesn't lend itself too well to conversion. If you take your rose colored glasses off, you'll notice that with characters and ETB models, GW's moving in the wrong direction for conversions -- look at things like the CSM terminator lord/sorcerer kit for the heights of conversion/adaptability from GW, and we've fallen significantly from there.

And in terms of rules, I simply gesture to the recent debacle with Haarken Worldclaimer -- bad rules, turned worse, turned back to bad. For which GW receives praise? C'mon. The rules are, for the most part, tighter, and that's nice, but tight does not always equal good, and it pretty rarely equals interesting.

dkoz wrote:
This is just a ridiculous gripe fest. GW has been knocking out of the park as of late. Not only have their rules been better than in past editions, but they are clearly listening to their play testers. Also their model game is on point, from the new Primaris Marines to the specialty stuff it's tight. With great opportunity for conversion if you like.

Knocking what out of the park?

I'm just gonna nevermind your positive vibe feels being some kind of constructive point.

If you think the Primaris push is glorious and wonderful, okay, cool, fine. The aesthetics of the miniature are neat. I think i mentioned that GW produces good miniatures, right?. I'm not dwelling on the quality of their miniatures, but the motive behind it all. For some of us, we can sense/see the patronizing essence in the 'hobby'.

As far as listening to their play testers, that doesn't necessarily mean its a good thing. Community driven game mechanics, in my experience, reduces the game. If you play World of Warcraft, you'll know what I'm talking about. THe e-sport and convenience pushing of the game have essentially scrubbed the RPG element from WoW., as well as meaningful reasons to actually do anything. They listend to their audience and made the game for a kind of proletariat, 'cuz everyone should progress regardless of their laziness'.

GW is attempting to cash in on statistical safe bets - what a company should do. However, GW doesn't sell vacuums or tools - things that are about utility - they're selling a story, and a look to go along with it. Amusingly a good story isn't a product, its a work of passion or genius for the sake of. Good does not equal popular. It should, but sometimes becomes veiled/hidden.

They're pushing product over the internal consistency of the universe. If they could sell a xenos race that resembles my little pony, because they polled enough players to indicate its high popularity, they would do it. There's no restraint for them other than finding a new market for the sake of selling new product. It's perhaps a bitter sweet thing at best, and to be expected with any IP owned by a company. It spells convoluted, and silliness will eventually weasel its way into a franchise.

This holds true to the gaminess aspect too: people that are into 28mm I reckon, deep down, dont want to play Epic scale 28mm, or are that super pumped about fielding zoids (overly large miniatures) on the field. They just want to play a basic game that has some strategy and tactical elements, not a card game with large plastic tonka tough vultron setups - where 'synergies' just means you read the rules more. GW has its head partially in the clouds about this. THey're at least attempting to band aid it with kill team.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:
at least in my local meta. I'm tired of fighting grey knights

Read the full quote again Karol...

 John Prins wrote:
I take issue with the people who insist that converting and kitbashing is dead/dying.

The only thing that is true these days is that you (mostly) DON'T HAVE TO. But if you want to, you can!

Converted Primaris Heroes:


Ironically, most of my conversions these days are to save money rather than buy $45 CAD character models.

Absolutely! Anyone saying conversions are dead simply isn't trying. Here is my Chapter Master, built on an easy build Intercessor Sgt.

What I agree if is that the lore of 40K is kinda boring nowadays. There's too much focus on the usual suspects (Roboute are you there ?), not much attention given to the context and the description of the world. Like the lore in the rule book or in the few codexes that I have read is just completly bland in comparaison to what was the norm in the early version of the game.
Now, to be fair, that might myself changing more than the lore I don't know, 2nd and 3rd edition is far away.

Why oh why is this "converting is dead" argument being misrepresented? Again.

NOBODY is saying converting is dead. I certainly am not. What is being said is GW has regressed. Look at how certain kits go together. They only go together with themselves and only in one way (I'll keep tilting at this windmill, but look at the Plague Marine kits for the most egregious examples).

Remember when ALL SM kits (regardless of if they were loyalist or not) were cross compatible with one another? Not any more. Same went for Orks/Orcs (the writing on the wall was there when the Savage Orcs came out). Now, everything is cut in weird way that make it somewhat difficult to convert, but not impossible. Models go together in strange ways and have odd equipment choices- Why can I only take a Mace of Contagion with a Bubotic Axe? Oh, that's right- because that's the only way to construct that model in that configuration.

GW isn't removing the option to convert, far from it. But it's juxtaposed with the mass removal of options which just strikes me as a little... schizophrenic.


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WhiteDog wrote:
What I agree if is that the lore of 40K is kinda boring nowadays. There's too much focus on the usual suspects (Roboute are you there ?), not much attention given to the context and the description of the world. Like the lore in the rule book or in the few codexes that I have read is just completly bland in comparaison to what was the norm in the early version of the game.
Now, to be fair, that might myself changing more than the lore I don't know, 2nd and 3rd edition is far away.

Yup, never understood this. Apparently people wanted the non-existent storyline to move forward (because 10,000 years of history on a galactic scale is just too "stagnant and boring". ), so GW did. And now we have a tiny galaxy where the focus is only on several dozen individuals.

 Stux wrote:
As a counterpoint to this:

Bare in mind that you are viewing the things GW does now with VERY different eyes than you would have in the 80s or 90s.

I don't know your age, so I'll talk about my experience. I was 10 when I played 40k 2nd edition. There is a wonder in discovering something like that, at that age, that cannot be replicated for someone in their 30s.

Sure, I can find new things and enjoy them. Love them even. But it's never the same. I have that cynicism about why businesses do things at the back of my mind. Things don't seem as fresh because I'm more aware of what else is out there.

I don't think it's fair to expect them to capture that ever again in their long term customers, not to the same extent.

That isn't to say that everything is the same or better than it was. Just that some things are awesome now, it's just difficult to appreciate them as much.

Pretty much this. Most people become cynical and jaded over time and don't understand that it is affecting their view of everything they interact with, whether it is tabletop wargaming, boardgames, or computer games. Hell, movies, books, and more suffer the same fate. I used to read Dragonlance books as a teenager and thought they were awesome. Tried to reread some of them and after 25+ years I have to say that they aren't good literature. At best they are the equivalent of romantic novels aimed at burgeoning geeks.

People also don't understand that society keeps changing along with its denizens, especially the younger ones. When I see older people talk about how it's all crap now compared to the dull offerings of the younger generation(usually they add ADHD/mindless zombies to characterize those young people) I am reminded of this quote:

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

Socrates

I also think a lot of users here don't understand that the way 40k marketed themselves 20 years ago was how marketing worked then. All edgy late 80s or early 90s airbrushing with naked people and guns blazing and everything was so damn Grimdark because Thatcher was about to ruin everything while the US and the Soviet Union was about to destroy everything. Of course, growing up at that time without self-awareness or criticism one might think that it was a time "where things were as the artists intended". I mean, it is easy to think that you are the greatest generation and everything done during your formative years is somehow high-brow creator gak.

Today we have the same marketing, but the demographic has changed(it is more diverse) and the times have changed. I am willing to bet dollar to donuts that there is a little kid out there browsing a Games Workshop/FLGS shelves and seeing that big and overwhelming Dark Imperium box, and that kid is going through every same emotion you went when you first saw that big 2nd/3rd/4th+ edition box set, seeing impossible words with impossible heroics, cruelty, and a myriad of different things. The difference is that that kid is experiencing those emotions for the first time while each and everyone of us older individuals have become more cynical and jaded and the latter believing that their first entry into the hobby was somehow better, because for some reason humans have this uncontrollable need to somehow feel superior, but that is perhaps my cynical and jaded take on humans.

Edit:

I also want to add in something that I see a lot of people just glaze over for some reason. Maybe it's because they've never worked at a game company or in the entertainment industry, but Games Workshop is filled with people who want to work on Warhammer and its future. People who themselves had that magical moment in the past when they opened up their first starter box, and now they are bringing their vision and touch to the game. To think that it is all just marketing and a faceless corporation I can tell you that this is just what you see because you don't know any of the designers, artists, and so on who are working on the game, and because you don't see it personally it becomes easy to think that these are just faceless drones following the bidding of their overlords. I can tell you this, however, that it is more than likely that each and every soul on the ground at GW wants to do something awesome for the hobby. People who are every day at work fighting to make the game better, bring something cool to it, or trying to discover stuff that can expand the hobby.

Now sure, they might have limitations, that's life, but that doesn't change the fact that there are a lot of people there who just want to make the hobby fun for all.

 Grimtuff wrote:
Why oh why is this "converting is dead" argument being misrepresented? Again.

Because I've had an awesome time converting new kits, so I suppose I get a bit defensive.

You have a fair point though. Yes, monopose is the default again (as it was at the very beginning of the game too).

For me, it's a double edged sword. There's a correlation between lack of posability and dynamics of the pose.

For characters I actually prefer them to generally be monopose, just because they tend to look a lot better for it.

For rank and file, yeah it can be annoying. You don't want a bunch of models stood next to each other posed identically. While I don't collect Death Guard, I can appreciate this issue is exponentially more annoying when you also have identical intestines spewing out in the same pattern and such!

Maybe because I am mostly a filthy xenos player, but monopose has always been the domain of xenos for the most part. At best you can do the arms more up or more down, but in the end you usually end up with very similar models or in some cases very wobbly ones(I see you Hormagaunt with your arms out in front).

For most of the non-monopose discussions it seems more focused on Space Marine players as they seemed to get quite a few plastic HQ and lines, whereas Craftworld players just had the same resins that had the same pose. Even Drukhari didn't have much posability except maybe in wyches and how their arms were flailing about. If you wanted to change something you had to raid other kits such as Scourges to change things up. Hell, Wracks and Grotesques were very monopose which was embarassing when you ran 5 resin Grotesques as they were all in a very "exaggerated".

I even own one of the old plastic Death Guard models. Monopose be thy name.

Edit: Feels like I need to add a small disclaimer. For me posability includes legs as well and most of the models in all line have very static leg poses unless you take out a saw and knife to change things. Posability of arms(and occasionally torso for a few lines) is very limited unless you want to break what little sense of realism there is in a game of 40k.

 Grimtuff wrote:

GW isn't removing the option to convert, far from it. But it's juxtaposed with the mass removal of options which just strikes me as a little... schizophrenic.

Go look at AOS and 8th.There's a really clear motivation behind a lot of the changes they've made, ease of entry. Grab a box a ruler and some dice and you can go play killteam with your friend. No scatter dice or templates to lead to arguments or confusion, clear assembly instructions(in theory, when they aren't mislabeled), rather simple basic rules and to use any given unit all you really need to do is look at it's page in a codex or a data card.

Fewer options means fewer traps for new players to get discouraged by and less of a chance someone buys a box and doesn't get what they need to build what the box is labeled as.

It's all pretty clear to me that their real goal is to get the game mainstream capable and not something that requires diving into the hobby dungeon for a while to even know how to build a unit.

Personally rather they go with the Genestealer cult option of 'hey look there's a crap ton of optional parts in this multipart kit for you to customize with' rather than straight monopose, but those aren't the friendliest of kits to toss together either.

The "small universe" thing, with the special characters taking up all the storyline space, is something I really feel. It used to be, the Galaxy is a big place, and whatever happens you will not be missed." and now it reads like bad fanfic in some cases.

This is even more true in Warhammer Fantasy, when End Times turned the background into a soap opera between a few named characters and now all of those characters are the gods of a new pantheon that are heavily involved in absolutely everything that happens in the setting. Blech. Reads like Forgotten Realms or something now, not a direction I enjoy at all.

 Grimtuff wrote:
Why oh why is this "converting is dead" argument being misrepresented? Again.

NOBODY is saying converting is dead. I certainly am not. What is being said is GW has regressed. Look at how certain kits go together. They only go together with themselves and only in one way (I'll keep tilting at this windmill, but look at the Plague Marine kits for the most egregious examples).

Remember when ALL SM kits (regardless of if they were loyalist or not) were cross compatible with one another? Not any more. Same went for Orks/Orcs (the writing on the wall was there when the Savage Orcs came out). Now, everything is cut in weird way that make it somewhat difficult to convert, but not impossible. Models go together in strange ways and have odd equipment choices- Why can I only take a Mace of Contagion with a Bubotic Axe? Oh, that's right- because that's the only way to construct that model in that configuration.

GW isn't removing the option to convert, far from it. But it's juxtaposed with the mass removal of options which just strikes me as a little... schizophrenic.


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WhiteDog wrote:
What I agree if is that the lore of 40K is kinda boring nowadays. There's too much focus on the usual suspects (Roboute are you there ?), not much attention given to the context and the description of the world. Like the lore in the rule book or in the few codexes that I have read is just completly bland in comparaison to what was the norm in the early version of the game.
Now, to be fair, that might myself changing more than the lore I don't know, 2nd and 3rd edition is far away.

Yup, never understood this. Apparently people wanted the non-existent storyline to move forward (because 10,000 years of history on a galactic scale is just too "stagnant and boring". ), so GW did. And now we have a tiny galaxy where the focus is only on several dozen individuals.

The interchangeable parts thing is just the next stage of the plastic models. The interchangeable parts limited the poses of the models. I use the marauders as an example. Compare them to the kairic acolytes and the blood reavers. The marauders have hideous shoulder joints and rigid upper bodies, fine for power armour but not for organic form. With the new cad and moulding techniques kits like the plague marines are possible, if they were interchangeable with all marines then you wouldn’t have had the options to have tentacles and all sorts other details on them. It’s a pay off. Each model in the plague marines kit makes 2-3 poses and load outs. And then you can convert as well. But it takes a bit of effort. I’d rather have the gorgeous limited pose models and still be able to convert easily due to the plastic material. All that is ending is the lazy “kitbashes” which were never really converting. Don’t get me wrong they were fun and I have some lovely models kitbashed that are my favourites. But now converting takes a bit more time and effort.

 Da Boss wrote:
The "small universe" thing, with the special characters taking up all the storyline space, is something I really feel. It used to be, the Galaxy is a big place, and whatever happens you will not be missed." and now it reads like bad fanfic in some cases.

This is even more true in Warhammer Fantasy, when End Times turned the background into a soap opera between a few named characters and now all of those characters are the gods of a new pantheon that are heavily involved in absolutely everything that happens in the setting. Blech. Reads like Forgotten Realms or something now, not a direction I enjoy at all.

What´s so bad about Forgotten Realms?

Andykp wrote:



The interchangeable parts thing is just the next stage of the plastic models. The interchangeable parts limited the poses of the models. I use the marauders as an example. Compare them to the kairic acolytes and the blood reavers. The marauders have hideous shoulder joints and rigid upper bodies, fine for power armour but not for organic form. With the new cad and moulding techniques kits like the plague marines are possible, if they were interchangeable with all marines then you wouldn’t have had the options to have tentacles and all sorts other details on them. It’s a pay off. Each model in the plague marines kit makes 2-3 poses and load outs. And then you can convert as well. But it takes a bit of effort. I’d rather have the gorgeous limited pose models and still be able to convert easily due to the plastic material. All that is ending is the lazy “kitbashes” which were never really converting. Don’t get me wrong they were fun and I have some lovely models kitbashed that are my favourites. But now converting takes a bit more time and effort.

They maybe look better, but GW still cuts and poses the models in a strange way. Their force huge models that require their own case to transport, on top of the 2 cases you need for troops. Maybe the models are good for display of painting skills, but for gaming they are horrible. they fall over all the time And because GW likes to make "dynamic" poses they suddenly are visible if they were higher then the new dreadnought. The posable models aren't that much posable either. they have a very specific arms and weapons you can take, at least from what our Stormcast players told me. You can't just model them as you want, primaris or the DG models are the same.


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 Strg Alt wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
The "small universe" thing, with the special characters taking up all the storyline space, is something I really feel. It used to be, the Galaxy is a big place, and whatever happens you will not be missed." and now it reads like bad fanfic in some cases.

This is even more true in Warhammer Fantasy, when End Times turned the background into a soap opera between a few named characters and now all of those characters are the gods of a new pantheon that are heavily involved in absolutely everything that happens in the setting. Blech. Reads like Forgotten Realms or something now, not a direction I enjoy at all.

What´s so bad about Forgotten Realms?

The Kelemvor story line. The whole Mystra dead, then mortal taking up her place. Cyric etc. etc

Karol wrote:
You can't just model them as you want, primaris or the DG models are the same.

I'm not sure why people keep saying this about Primaris, because it's not true. You follow the instructions to assemble their legs and torsos. Everything else is pretty much capable of being assembled the way you want. In fact, I strongly recommend ALWAYS doing this because following instructions will end up giving you a couple of dudes with decent poses and the others look boring or like they're doing calisthenics and not really putting their heart into it.

All the hellblasters look the same, same with the bolter dudes, the flying dudes and the not terminator dudes. Maybe someone can notice the difference when holding two models in their hands, but from the other side of the table it looks like 9 indentical dudes and one waving his weapon around aka the squad leader.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

Karol wrote:
You can't just model them as you want, primaris or the DG models are the same.

I'm not sure why people keep saying this about Primaris, because it's not true. You follow the instructions to assemble their legs and torsos. Everything else is pretty much capable of being assembled the way you want. In fact, I strongly recommend ALWAYS doing this because following instructions will end up giving you a couple of dudes with decent poses and the others look boring or like they're doing calisthenics and not really putting their heart into it.

People are saying this cause compared to older marine kits, the options are pretty limited. If I'm assembling a normal marine squad, I can pull bitz from 50+ sources. Chaos, DW, GKs, FW, Sub loyalist chapters, the sky is the limit.

With Primaris marines, it's whats in this box. Even within their own range, the various units have little to no cross compatibility.

Karol wrote:
All the hellblasters look the same, same with the bolter dudes, the flying dudes and the not terminator dudes. Maybe someone can notice the difference when holding two models in their hands, but from the other side of the table it looks like 9 indentical dudes and one waving his weapon around aka the squad leader.

Not to be a complete smartass here, but you have seen Imperial Guard, Necrons, Eldar, and Tyranids on the table before, right?

...and I'm not sure how that's any different at all from any of the old Space Marines.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
People are saying this cause compared to older marine kits, the options are pretty limited. If I'm assembling a normal marine squad, I can pull bitz from 50+ sources. Chaos, DW, GKs, FW, Sub loyalist chapters, the sky is the limit.

Yeah, their weapon selection is limited. That's it, the only kits that are limited are the easy-to-build sets.

Once you've assembled the legs to the torso, everything that works on the old Space Marine kits works with Primaris Marines, except:

Beakie Helmets (fix this by cutting down the collar)
Backpacks (fix this by cutting the peg down on the back)

HoundsofDemos wrote:
With Primaris marines, it's whats in this box. Even within their own range, the various units have little to no cross compatibility.

That's weird... because I've been doing that whole 'cross compatibility' thing with the entire Primaris range for a few weeks now, even combining them with old Space Marine kits.

Within their own range, the only thing that doesn't work with Mark X armor is the right arm from Reivers, because it has its own shoulderpad affixed. A file or Dremmel tool fixes this. Otherwise, you just have to cut the hands and TBH that's actually a lot easier.

One thing I think GW has consistently missed as time has gone on is scale of the game. 8th is one of the more balanced editions but what throws it out of whack is that GW continues to write rules for what works best as a skirmish game with a few squads and tanks, but then also includes knights, demi gods and other super heavy units. A return of clear rules for a normal 40k game and apoc would help tremendously but I doubt they will do that because big models equal big money.

 Strg Alt wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
The "small universe" thing, with the special characters taking up all the storyline space, is something I really feel. It used to be, the Galaxy is a big place, and whatever happens you will not be missed." and now it reads like bad fanfic in some cases.

This is even more true in Warhammer Fantasy, when End Times turned the background into a soap opera between a few named characters and now all of those characters are the gods of a new pantheon that are heavily involved in absolutely everything that happens in the setting. Blech. Reads like Forgotten Realms or something now, not a direction I enjoy at all.

What´s so bad about Forgotten Realms?

My problem with Forgotten Realms is that it spends so much time on the plot between the various gods dying being reincarnated, stealing each others portfolios or whatever. And if it isn't the gods it's Elminster and whoever else. And if it isn't Elminster it's Drizzt and his band of merry mates. That is all well and good for a fantasy book series (though I do not find celestial soap opera to be that enthralling) but Forgotten Realms is supposed to be a game setting, which means the players are the protagonists. I always feel like the "real" PCs of Forgotten Realms are the various Gods and the characters from the fiction, which makes me not want to run games there very much. I feel that the focus on named characters and progressing a "plot" in 40K and especially AoS means it has been going down the same path. It is more of a narrative than a setting now. For me, a big part of the appeal was making my own characters inside the setting and telling my own stories in a world big enough to mean that my story could be entirely my own. As time has gone on GW has bent more and more to the people who wanted an ongoing story and a focus on special characters, and that has turned me off the setting.

dkoz wrote:
This is just a ridiculous gripe fest. GW has been knocking out of the park as of late. Not only have their rules been better than in past editions, but they are clearly listening to their play testers. Also their model game is on point, from the new Primaris Marines to the specialty stuff it's tight. With great opportunity for conversion if you like.

A part of me is thrilled that GW is doing better than ever before. They're methodically going down the line and checking off every single box that describes what a successful game company looks like in the year 2019.

But a deeper part of me is undeniably depressed at what they are sacrificing in order to do this.

We know what successful mainstream game companies look like. They are hollowed out corporate shells compared to the irreverent, slightly subversive, slightly provocative game companies of yesteryear.